CHOZICK (7/11/14): Of all the headaches of her current book tour—the declining sales, the constant travel, the interviews that generated unkind headlines about her family’s wealth—this one may sting Hillary Rodham Clinton the most: Her memoir, “Hard Choices,” has just been toppled from its spot on the best-seller list by a sensational Clinton account by her longtime antagonist Edward Klein.

“This one may sting Clinton the most.” And then again, it may not!

So it goes when the New York Times executes journalism. Chozick goes on to discuss Klein’s book, which is “full of implausible passages” and “factually suspect” details. According to Chozick, the book “paints a Shakespearean (if unbelievable) portrait of” the relations between the Clintons and the Obamas.

Our view? If the portrait is “unbelievable,” Chozick should say that word first. But please note: The Times can now put Clinton’s speaking fees in the first paragraph of its reports. As of yesterday, the Times had barely mentioned this deeply troubling topic.

The fees became The Official Scandal of the Clinton book tour. But before this rather suspect scandal was lovingly selected, that interview with Terry Gross was in the running to be the official choice.

Did Hillary Clinton do something wrong when she spoke to Terry Gross? No, but pundits like Krystal Ball couldn’t wait to pretend. Once again, this was Ball’s account of the way the session went down:

BALL (6/17/14): Then there was an uncomfortable exchange with NPR’s Terry Gross in which Hillary struggled at length to sort through her various talking-points on gay marriage to describe how and why her position on the issue changed. She eventually settled on something along the lines of, “The country changed and so did I and as soon as I was done with my non-political job at State I came out with my new position,” an answer that I really take no issue with. I wish more people would have the courage to evolve, and more rapidly.

But in her talking-point flail we were reminded of something else—the fact that, for the Clintons, everything is carefully poll-tested, focus-grouped and weather-vaned. If marriage equality was still a drag for Democratic candidates, do you think Hillary would still have come out in support?

In our view, you’re looking at political porn, straight outta the RNC playbook. It's delivered by a grasping young pundit who wouldn’t be on your TV machine if we lived in a more serious culture.

Ball went on from there to offer this undisguised nonsense:

BALL: [A]fter decades in public service, we still can only really speculate on what Hillary Clinton is all about.

Is she a triangulating moderate? A secret liberal? A DLC Wall Street Dem? What will she run on? What sort of president would she actually be? There’s no clues in the bland safety of her State Department record and certainly not in Hard Choices. So we can only guess through the bobbles, the accidental deviations from the script, the things that are said that didn’t come from the briefing book.

Really? There’s nothing in Clinton’s record at State that would give us clues? In that interview on Fresh Air, Gross marveled at Clinton’s record at State concerning LGBT rights, saying it was so progressive that Clinton must have smuggled it through when nobody was looking. (For full text, see below.)

Ball snarked at Clinton’s discussion of same-sex marriage, then ignored this part of the interview. We don’t think much of people like Ball. We don’t think you should either.

That said, Clinton and Gross did have a rather weird, extended exchange concerning same-sex marriage that day. We thought Clinton’s performance was slightly odd, but Gross’ performance was odder.

Here’s why:

This morning, we showed you the Q-and-A which started this exchange. Here it is again:

GROSS (6/12/14): This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross, back with Hillary Clinton. Her new memoir, Hard Choices, is about her four years as secretary of state during President Obama's first term. When we left off, we were talking about her efforts to bring LGBT rights into the international community's framework of human rights. She also made it easier for Americans to change their gender on their passports.

Were there positions you believed in as senator but you couldn't publicly support because you felt that it wasn't time yet? That the positions would have been too unpopular? That the public wasn't ready in regards to LGBT rights? And, you know, I often think that there are politicians who, you know, in their heart really support it but don't publicly support it.

CLINTON: Well, I was fully on board with ending discrimination in the workplace on behalf of the LGBT community. I did not support gay marriage when I was in the Senate or running for president, as you know, and as President Obama and others held the same position. But it, for me, became an opportunity to do what I could as secretary of state to make the workplace fairer, something I had always supported and spoke out about. And then when I was out of the secretary of state position and once again free to comment on domestic matters, I very shortly came out in favor of fully equality, including gay marriage.

Same-sex marriage wasn’t specifically mentioned by Gross. Clinton quickly stated the fact that she hadn’t supported gay marriage when she was in the Senate.

That said, Clinton didn’t answer Gross’ question one way or the other. Had she withheld support for gay rights for political reasons? Had she secretly favored gay marriage all along? Had she felt she couldn’t say so in public because the public wasn’t ready?

Clinton didn’t answer that question one way or the other. Gross had every right to ask again. Instead, she fashioned this strange follow-up question:

GROSS (continuing directly): So what's it like when you're in office and you have to do all these political calculations to not be able to support something like gay marriage that you actually believe in? And you obviously feel very committed to human rights, and you obviously put gay rights as part of human rights, but in doing the calculus you decided you couldn't support it—correct me if I'm reading it wrong.

That’s a peculiar “question.” Gross starts by simply assuming that Clinton secretly supported same-sex marriage all along. After asking Clinton what it’s like to be caught in that position, she says, as an afterthought, that Clinton should correct her if she’s reading it wrong.

Clinton hadn’t said any such thing. In this, her second question, Gross leaped way ahead of what she had been told.

“Well, I think you're reading it very wrong,” Clinton immediately said. The discussion devolved from there.

As the exchange wound on, Clinton never said when she decided that she supported same-sex marriage. But then, Gross never exactly asked her wither. In our view, the discussion went off the rails with Gross’ peculiar follow-up question, in which she seemed to assume that Clinton had copped to deception.

What did Clinton really think about same-sex marriage in 1993? We don’t know and we can’t say that we hugely care.

There are certain hot-button issues on which, for fairly obvious reasons, major national pols will almost always be the last to speak. Gay marriage was one such issue. Obama didn’t change his position until the summer of 2012, and even then, he had to go through a song-and-dance with Biden. Clinton took the same route as soon as she left State, from which post she didn’t discuss domestic issues.

In our view, Clinton could have handled this exchange better, but that is always true. We thought Gross’ performance was stranger. She seemed determined to say that Clinton had been a secret supporter all along. By the time of her second question, she was simply assuming that point.

If you really want to be grossed out, read that bullshit from Krystal Ball, after you read Gross’ account of Clinton’s record at State.

Clinton’s record at State: Once again, this was Gross’ account of Clinton’s record at State:

GROSS (6/12/14): I want to move on to LGBT rights, which was very important to you as secretary of state. You made it one of your priorities. In fact, you gave a speech at the headquarters of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva with the goal to place LGBT rights in the international community's framework of human rights. In that speech, you said, “Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.”

I found it very interesting that you decided to not limit what you were saying to gay rights but to include transgender people. There are parts of the world that are still imprisoning or even executing people for being gay. Being transgender is probably, like, way off the map for them. Was it difficult to decide to include transgender, which would strike some people as being more radical than including—than just including gay and bisexual people?

CLINTON: Well, LGBT includes the T, and I wanted to stand up for the entire community. I don't believe that people who are the L, the G, the B or the T should be persecuted, assaulted, imprisoned, even killed for who they are. And this was the debate that I was having with leaders in many parts of the world who first denied there were any such people in their communities, that it was all an invention and export of the West and then would change the argument to they didn't want people being proselytized. They didn't want children being abused.

And I said well, there are laws against that that are certainly appropriate. No one should be coerced. No one should be abused. But you're talking about the status, the, you know—the very core of who a person is. And it has become, and I think will continue to be, a very important issue for the United States to combat around the world and to stand up for the rights of all people. And as I said, not just women, religious, ethnic, tribal—all people, including the LGBT community.

GROSS: You added gender identity to the State Department's Equal Employment Opportunity policy, and you made it easier for Americans to change their sex on their passport. Did you have to sneak that in without a lot of attention?

I can—I mean, I didn't know you'd done that. But I have a feeling, if a lot of people had known you'd done that, you would've gotten a lot of pushback for that. I mean, because there's still a lot of people in our country who oppose gay rights and would probably even more so oppose, like, any recognition of the transgender community. So did you do that on [laughing] the quiet?

CLINTON: Well, I don't know how quiet it was. Even before I did that, I spoke to the LGBT employees at the State Department. I was aware of their hopes for some changes that might make it easier for them to be the professionals that they had signed up to be. And I don't think it was any big secret. I think it was part of the overall efforts to try to treat people with dignity and equality.

And certainly the Obama administration made some of its own moves at the same time with respect to the larger federal employee pool. And when I had responsibility for the well-being of the 70,000 or so employees around the world who worked for the State Department and USAID, I had an opportunity, through executive action, to recognize that there were barriers and vestiges of discrimination that had no place in a moderate American workplace and so I acted.

According to the horrible Ball, none of this ever happened. There are “no clues...in the bland safety” of Clinton’s record at State.

146 comments:

Interesting that Somersby focused in on that loaded "follow up" question. When you read the entire text, it practically jumps off the page. The rest of the interview is practically a love letter. I have more questions for Gross than Clinton. Why did you throw that grenade in the middle of the garden party? If Krystal Ball was familiar with the entire interview, she never could have made the critique of Clinton she made. If she didn't bother to familiarize herself with transcript or recording, she has no business being a tv commentator.

It was a puffball interview! Then there's that crazy question. What politician wouldn't have pushed back? It was not a legitimate follow up question since it makes a wild assumption about the person being interviewed.

Sure politicians are calculating, even cunning. Those are occupational traits. Maybe Hillary thinks she can push the envelope into prevarication and distortion with impunity. After all, as a Wall Street corporatist and a war-mongering militarist, she has gotten away with much worse.

It basically says Clinton's responses to a NY Times interview questionnaire seem as if the were "poll-tested."

It was by Ralph Nader.

Obviously he is spouting RNC talking points and clearly he did more to get George Bush elected President than Chris Matthews or MoDo. But around the TDH sprawling campus you are as unlikey to hear that as you are unlikely to hearTim Russert despised the Clintons at NBC.

Yes, 1:04, let's instead continue to discuss the "War on Gore" which hasn't been discussed enough around here.

By the way, whatever happened to the Green Party? They sure went out of their way to campaign against the candidate with the strongest environmental record at least since Teddy Roosevelt.

And they did this even to the point of re-nominating a guy with national name recognition who was never a member of their party -- all to get to the treasured 5 percent of the vote threshhold to trigger federal campaign funds, which they also failed to do.

References to the War on Gore and other past events are intended to show a pattern in the way the press corps behaves, to connect current instances of bad behavior to past ones, to show that this isn't accidental but intentional on the part of our so-called liberal pundits.

References to the Sun God were ment to explain why that firey orb rose on a repeated basis, circled the sky in its chariot then went to bed at night like the rest of us. And while it was up, a few ruled, others sucked up to them, and most wandered around idiotically.

Yes, because idiot commenters, those who recognize the voters who were aware enough of Nader to have voted for him instead of Gore in New Hampshire, know those votes would have tipped the Electoral College to the guy who won the popular vote regardless of anything the press did.

Almost no politician does anything but weather-vane, some more than others. Obama didn't evolve on gay marriage. As with most issues, he had no opinion before or after other than the one the polls dictated. The Clintons are actually thinkers and had an opinion before and after gay marriage became a mainstream issue, and that private opinion (most likely "anti") is the same now. Like Obama's, their public position now and then is poll determined.

Seems to me the Republican congress did that (DOMA). Don't ask was a compromise and a step in the right direction at the time. I don't think Barack Obama deserves credit for what gay rights activists and those in entertainment actually moved forward (e.g., Will & Grace). That is sort of like giving Reagan credit for the fall of the USSR.

We are now going to find out whether our current president is actually a pissy little narcissist or a real human being as we see whether he steps up and supports Clinton or goes his own way, giving those six-figure speeches and building his own bankroll after leaving office.

Republicans end up selling themselves to crazies. Back in the day it was the Christianists; today it's the teahadists. In both cases, it wasn't because the party establishment agreed with their eventual overlords; it was because they were for sale. The problem with the latest group is that they hate government. Period. Anybody too long in Washington, DC is suspect, and voting records and ideology don't matter. Eric Cantor was a jerk who wanted to be Speaker. The former quality is unhelpful for reelection, and the latter is an anathema to the people who own Eric's party. The good news for Eric Cantor is that he can still be Speaker, and if he's elevated to that post, he won't have to worry about crazed constituents.

Thad Cochran was in line with this party's party line, but he was part of the establishment, doling out government pork. Things are so nuts in the Republican Party that in Mississippi it turned out that the pork was served to people who got angrier the more they supped on it. These are kind of people who enjoy a meal at the local restaurant but ask the owner to fire their waiter because he served them the meal. So Thad came in second in his primary. But he forced a runoff, winning with black votes. Can't you just hear the McDaniel people: "Negroes are voting now? How did that happen. We just ratified the 13th Amendment last year."

This blog is about how the press corps covers education, or Clinton, or any of a number of issues. It is about the press corps. Krystal Ball illustrated how the press corps has waged a jihad against Clinton. That is very much within the sphere of interest of this blog -- because it is about the press corps. Aside from that, no one cares much about Krystal Ball.

This blog is very much about whatever random thought pops into Somerby's head as he sits in front of his keyboard, And with very, very little research and work going into it beyond typing up those random thoughts as he continues to reach for the lowest-hanging of the lowest-hanging fruit.

Think not? Then I challenge anyone to go back into the Incomparable Archives and read the series upon series inspired by the story of D'Leisha Dent.

After wandering for weeks through the tall weeds of whatever random thought crossed his mind on any given day, we finally got to the stunning conclusion that D'Leisha's parents obviously didn't talk to her enough when she was a baby.

Those articles were not about D'Leisha Dent but about the articles about her (by Hannah-Jones) and the ways in which education issues are covered, specifically the focus on resegregation instead of remediation. No one said D'Leisha's parents didn't talk to her because the article was not about D'Leisha. It was about how to fix education for the many many kids like D'Leisha who are still not prospering in our schools.

If you don't like Somerby's writing style, you know the obvious solution. Go somewhere else.

But note that nowhere did I say that the articles were "about" D'Leisha Dent. I said they were weeks worth of random daily thoughts without much of a focal point, inspired by Hannah-Jones's story of the D'Leisha.

As for your ego in thinking you can tell others where to go and what to read, I have my standard response: You can kiss my ass.

I happen to enjoy the rather guilty pleasure that is so easily obtained watching Bob's fans attempt to cope with opinions other than their leader's.

"Think not? Then I challenge anyone to go back into the Incomparable Archives and read the series upon series inspired by the story of D'Leisha Dent.

After wandering for weeks through the tall weeds of whatever random thought crossed his mind on any given day, we finally got to the stunning conclusion that D'Leisha's parents obviously didn't talk to her enough when she was a baby."

If you cannot see the focus of your own comments or the point of Somerby's posts, the problem is with you and your thinking, not those others here who do understand the point of his posts.

No one is going to kiss your ass. Sorry. Perhaps you might try a different blog and get better results.

Ah, yes. The middle school playground "mental illness" insult, straight out of the Somerby playbook.

Well, poody poo poo on you, too.

But because your memory of Bob's series upon series about the plight of D'Leisha Dent and the schools of Tuscaloosa, allow me to refresh:

We were first introduced to the subject by a post which tried to demonstrate how the "liberal media" seeks to divide people by region, telling pleasing tales about a still racist South.

We were then told that Tuscaloosa's schools weren't really resegregating because some schools had both black and white students. In fact, Bob found pictures of black and white children playing happily together.

Then Bob segued into a favorite theme: The "liberal media" won't dare mention the magnificent gains made by black students on his favorite test. Instead, they all want to focus on that persistent "achievement gap" and provide the context that white students also made remarkable gains.

Then, long after D'Leisha got into college, we were treated daily to Bob proclaiming she couldn't get into college. And this was even long after it was pointed out -- by one of his fans, no less -- that she had been accepted into college. On scholarship.

We were also promised a recitation of some "brutal history written by no living person."

That however got sidetracked by two things. The first was the evil nature of Bill Gates funding research into setting national standards for what every child in America should be learning at each step of their primary and secondary education.

Then Bob suddenly discovered the "word gap" as the easy and simple solution to all our education woes. If only poor parents would talk to their babies like rich parents do. We even got the pleasing tale of the expatriated mommy in Paris whose five-year-old wanted to learn Croatian. I suppose if all poor parents would talk to their babies, kids all over America would be speaking Croatian.

This led to a sojourn to Providence, where Bob told the pleasing tale of a program there that aims to close the "word gap." Never mind that the program was funded by the previously vile and evil Michael Bloomberg, out like Gates to destroy teachers union, or that it was hatched by a protege of the evil and vile Michelle Rhee, also out to destroy teachers unions.

It was quite the winding road through a land of both tall weeds and random thoughts, full of sound and fury, but eventually signifying nothing.

If you think the Tuscaloosa entries were full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, then you're the idiot. A judgment confirmed when you trollishly whine about commenters telling you what TDH is writing about. TDH is poundingly, obsessively clear on what he writes about. That doesn't make him necessarily right or wrong, but there's no mystery about his themes.

And once again, nobody is telling you what to read or where to go to read it. People just wonder what kind of an idiot spends time on a hateful but optional task. Apparently one who thinks people should kiss his ass for making an obvious inquiry.

Yay! *I* spotted that same lazy, scripted crap. I almost always agree with DH... when I get here and read the commentary. But I am so happy that I am beginning to spot this stuff on my own, well in advance.

We would love to review the transcripts of the commentators BOB excoriates in this two part miniseries on the Terry Gross interview, but won't bother. We may find as much missing in his presentation of those shows as there is in the Terry Gross interview itself, but what he left out of that is bad enough for one two part comment.

In this miniseries BOB worked himself up to say 'It’s very hard for many liberals to grasp the following key point: Ball, Hayes, Savage and Ball are in many ways horrible people."

Krystal Ball is horrible for using RNC talking points that BOB says date back to 1999 but which he himself never covered at the time. The other Ball did uses two real phrases thrown at Al Gore plus she went to Yale.

Savage is horrible because he used the time honored BOB technique of taking what Hillary Clinton said and turning it into what she seemed to be feeling. Here's Savage as quoted by BOB: "Hillary seemed at once to be angered by the suggestion that she ever opposed it and angered at the suggestion that there was something wrong that she changed her mind.....Hillary Clinton seems really reluctant to admit that she opposed marriage equality ever. And Terry Gross is trying to pin her down on that, and she just squirmed and squirmed."

Not true, says BOB because Hillary early on says "I did not support gay marriage when I was in the Senate or running for president, as you know.” Saying you didn't support something is not admitting you opposed something, as anyone who knows the difference between creating and inventing the internet should be able to tell anyone.

Savage said she "seemed reluctant to say she opposed it" not that she denied her failure to support it in the Senate.

If that is misleading, then I hope BOBfans join me in hollering every time BOB uses the word "seems" "suggests" or any other modifier he himself uses to alter quotes. But in this case, Hillary gets herself into trouble by suggesting what others might be saying as well. We'll get to that shortly.

Let's look for a moment at what makes Chris "the puppy" Hayes horrible to BOB "the PeePaw" Somerby. For one thing, Hayes invokes a question asked of Clinton by Tim Russert and never mentions that Russert despised Clinton. Well, we have to take one author's word for that, and that author said Clinton despised Russert back. And BOB disappears that. Which brings us to the disappearing issue, Terry Gross and the bigger problem for Hillary Clinton.

You seem to expect Somerby to repeat the entire interview. That isn't fair use. Then you blame him for writing about his issues instead of yours. Leaving anything out indicates some dishonesty. You are the most useless being in this galaxy. Shame on you for wasting this lovely internet this way.

@ 11:14 that is one possibility. Another, which you overlook, is that @10:23 is also KZ posting as anonymous.Thirdly, you could be the Z'ster yourself. Since the overlook the obvious, this could be misdirection. Since you use ad hominy and projectiles, you are obviously a TDH blog commenter, so you can't be Somerby. He only reads and makes comments elsewhere where the readers are more intelligent.

KZ, you are a tiresome little schizophrenic living on public disability in someone's basement. You need to buy a dog or get a hobby, or visit the library. You are wasting everyone's time here and no one appreciates what you write. That you post anonymously to generate a pseudo-discussion or to make it appear someone laughs at your idiocies is just pathetic.

You seem unable to coherently explain why you dislike Somerby to the point of waging this personal vendetta, but it has nothing to do with the content of anything he says.

There is no content to anything you say, except "I hate Bob, I hate Bob, I hate Bob." OK, we get it. You hate Bob. Your mission here is accomplished. Please go away and leave us alone. Bob isn't reading your garbage and the rest of us are just annoyed by it.

I am not hiding my inability "to take the Zster on." I'm stating it upfront. I'm afraid that I'm just not that flexible. Most of the time I can't make it through his longer screeds, which seem to be mostly about how TDH is a hypocrite. Or something.

Take his offering at 12:36A below. Terry Gross is quirky; Hilary Clinton is imperial. And I gave up there before I could find out how that is the fault of TDH, whom the Zster is apparently on a first name and capitalized basis.

Part of Hillary Clinton's problem since her husband ran for President is a tendency to answer questions in a manner which others interpret not as poll-tested, focused-grouped, or scripted, but as condescending.

What got the attention drawn to the Gross interview was this exchange, which came at the end of the discussion and BOB never mentions:

"GROSS: So that's one for you changed your mind? (Laughing).

CLINTON: You know, I really - I have to say, I think you are very persistent, but you are playing with my words and playing with what is such an important issue.

GROSS: I am just trying to clarify so I can understand.

CLINTON: No, I don't think you are trying to clarify. I think you're trying to say that, you know, I used to be opposed and now I'm in favor and I did it for political reasons. And that's just flat wrong. So let me just state what I feel like you are implying and repudiate it. I have a strong record. I have a great commitment to this issue and I am proud of what I've done and the progress we're making.

GROSS: You know, I'm just saying - I'm sorry - I just want to clarify what I was saying - no, I was saying that you maybe really believed this all along, but - you know, believed in gay marriage all along, but felt for political reasons America wasn't ready yet and you couldn't say it. That's what I was thinking.

CLINTON: No. No, that is not true.

GROSS: OK."

Terry Gross is a somewhat beloved and hardly controversial figure to her regular audience. They like her because she comes at her subjects with questions which are a little quirky and unusual. Clinton need not have gotten, shall we say, a bit imperial in her response.

For someone who despised at least one prominient member of the media and should have known she had a reputation for not liking most of them, there seemed to be little reason to directly attack Gross. For someone with a reputation, deserved or not, of not being willing to admit error, Clinton went out of her way to show how that reputationwas derived.

On our planet we thought your "Big Dog" was one of your better leaders. We think his First Lady might be an excellent person to be the first lady President. But she needs to learn to answer questions in a way which does not reinforce a view of herself she has, as much as the press has, developed over 20 + years in the national spotlight.

We have no such hope for improvement for the proprietor of this establishment.

You know, Hillary Clinton's place in U.S. history is secure. She is one of the great figures, not just women, but one of the great figures, period.

But should she decide to run for president, and I certainly hope she does, she can spend the next two years fighting with every person to whom she grants an interview over every question she deems to be rude,

Or she can lay out her case for her election and her vision for the future of this country.

It wasn't the rudeness but the inaccuracy of the characterization of her views that she was objecting to. If you let an inaccurate characterization stand without challenging it, you are stuck with that viewpoint for the rest of history.

In diplomacy, part of negotiation is putting words into other people's mouths and misinterpreting their statements in order to move them toward a more favorable position. Of course she is going to object to that. It is part of her training and former job description to do so.

I liked his plan to put a colony on the Moon better. Obama should have put him in charge of NASA, then reached out and made Rick Perry Secretary of What's the Third? Then, and only then could he have been seen as truly reaching across the aisle and fully considering Republican views.

That comment may not have resonated with you, but I suspect you are not female and care less about the sexist treatment she had been receiving at that point. It was not intended for you. Are you unaware that there is a gender gap in politics?

We were talking about Newt and the debates not Terry Gross. There was not a "sexist plot" in 2008 but a concerted effort to keep Clinton from winning the nomination. That included sexist attacks by Obama directly and by his people, as well as a wide variety of non-sexist but ugly attacks. Women have not forgotten this because women identified with Clinton and thus took much of this personally, more than male Obama supporters perhaps appreciate. That remains a problem because there has been no acknowledgement much less apology for what occurred. That is going to be a factor if Clinton decides to run again, and perhaps even if she doesn't, depending on the circumstances of her decision.

Terry Gross made a mistake and Hillary Clinton corrected it. End of story. She wasn't rude about it and Gross was persistent in her "misunderstanding" but I don't think she was motivated by anything more than an attempt to force Clinton to say something new that would be a scoop and demonstrate her abilities as an interviewer.

Yes. If Terry Gross had produced a scoop and bumpted up NPR's Nielsen's the greedy greasypole climber might have been able to get a new pair of Birkenstocks and wow both her fellow guild members and be the toast of the tote bag crowd.

Hillary has ever right to keep Terry Gross from misniterpreting what she said on tape. Look what happened to Al Gore. If Al had spoken up the minute when Time misquoted him about he and Tipper being the models for Love Story, half a million Iraqi's might have lived another day, decade, or whole lifetime.

There were at least two times. Once when he referred to her being sensitive at certain times (a veiled reference to that time of month) and again when he said she was likeable enough. There was also the time where he was discussing her while scratching his nose with his third finger (the one used to flip people off), which is a very male sophomoric gesture. And don't forget 99 problems and a bitch ain't one of them. If you are expecting an explicitly sexist statement like the MRA makes, Obama was more subtle than that. Commenting on a woman's attractiveness or likeability underscores the expectation that women are supposed to be sociable. The rest came from Obama's surrogates -- the suggestion that when she teared up she was being manipulative, the poster of Hillary that Favreau and was drunkenly fondling, and so on. Many women also deeply resent that Hillary was not permitted a roll call of her delegates at the nominating convention, that she was not allowed to concede (Obama preempted her announcement) formally, and similar gestures of disrespect, because male candidates have never been treated that way in past elections. The repeated calls for her to stop her campaign while she was so close in the delegate count and was still winning major primaries strikes women as sexist because that has not been done with male candidates -- no one would expect a man to step aside like that before the nominating convention. These are direct attacks and they are gender-based because she was not treated like a serious, viable candidate. Obama's assumption that he had the whole thing wrapped up, long before he had any reason to believe that, is sexist from the beginning because he did not treat her candidacy as a serious one. That may have been an election strategy but it was still 100% sexist and it encouraged sexism in the media and among voters.

"At least two times." And one of those was scratching his nose with the wrong finger.

Look, politics is a bare-knuckled street fight. Lots of things get said or done that, taken in their worst possible light and strained hard enough, can be turned into anything. And a lot of things are said that people instantly regret, including Bill's famous and dismissive, "Well, Jesse Jackson won South Carolina, too."

There were lots of things that happened in that historic 2008 campaign that I am certain stung both candidates deeply. And I am sure Hillary was hurt personally when some of her closest allies and friends began lining up to endorse Obama while the race was still on. These included the Kennedys -- including Ted and Caroline -- and even John Lewis very publicly switched sides.

You know, there is a very short passage in her book in which Hillary describes the heart-to-heart they had about the sexism in Obama's campaign. The media tried to play that up into a lingering Hatfields and McCoys feud, but Hillary deftly shot that down.

I'm certain the conversation was two-way. Hillary also apologized for the meanest, stupidest things said by her campaign in that tooth-and-nail fight.

I happen to think that they are both grown-ups. If you carry grudges -- no matter how deserved -- your not going to accomplish anything, and you will only grow bitter and older.

Bill practiced that very well while he was in office and after, and I have no reason to believe that Hillary and Obama are any less gracious.

Isaif he preempted her concession. He gave his victory speech before she gave her concession speech. Normally this is coordinated in timing but Obama did not let Clinton concede before making his victory speech. That showed disrespect and trampled the already raw feelings of the large number of Hillary supporters. It was petty and tone deaf and would have been an issue if Clinton were male. A very low class move among many in that campaign.

That said, when it comes to the subset of Bob's tribe who are also Hillary Clinton fan's, when Bob stirs them into a defensive fury, if you criticize Bob they often feel the need to attack Obama. Guess they haven't gotten it out of their system.

Isn't that the truth! Whenever a "liberal" politician gets beat up in the press, it's not the fault of those doing the beating. It's the fault of "liberals" in the press not rushing to the defense of the "liberal" politician.

That's been Somerby's consistent theme for 16 years.

Unless, of course, it's a "conservative" politician getting beat up, such as Dubya, Christie or Ultrasound.

In that case, the blame rests solely on "pseudo-liberals" in the media who are acting "tribal" and "just like Fox."

What amuses me is his consistent description of normal human behavior in group settings as the somehow unique, mysterious, often nefariously guild based actions of the press which is causing the collapse of civilization.

In this case it could be any number of Anonymi. Obviously there are those who can't bare the thought of their favorite media celebrities undergoing any critical scrutiny. Some are clearly here on a mission to right "the wrong" of that criticism. You can see it in the hurt, the anger, and the personal attacks.

Liberals have the ability to rapidly change what's acceptable. In just a few years, they first created a prevailing opinion that gay sex is acceptible and then that gay marriage is acceptable, and finally that opposition to gay marriage is homophobic.

Hillary opposed gay marriage at one time. So, from the liberal POV, she was either homophobic or pretending to oppose gay marriage. To assume that she was faking her belief is the lesser of two evils, from a certain libera POV. Terri Gross was complimenting Hillary by assuming that she always truly supported gay marriage. I don't think Terri Gross would pay the same compliment to, say, Dick Cheney.

I agree with the commenter above who pointed out that opposing something is different than not supporting it. I don't see her as opposing gay marriage. I have seen her making statements that she does not support it, but never saying she opposes it, on any grounds. I also do not see her using her faith to justify anything except her personal responses to things. For example, she uses her faith to explain how she has been able to forgive others or why she considers public service important.

Liberals were credited with winning the presidential debates in the elections involving Gore, Kerry and Obama. But it is admittedly difficult to debate conservatives who make up their own facts and don't use logic -- just slogans and emotional accusations (death panels, social security going broke, etc.).

How many debates was this mentioned in by either side, apart from NCLB and vague statements about improving education? Clinton had specifics but you had to go to her website to find them. Obama was a Rhee enthusiast and charter school supporter who favored strengthening community colleges over higher ed.

Religion need not be the grounds on which Hillary does not support gay marriage. It could be that she does not support it because there is no reason for it given that marriage need only exist as a social institution for the purpose of ensuring through social pressure and law that heterosexuals who produce children together would be responsible for those children (and that men would be financially responsible for women when women had no rights) within a nuclear family system society has deemed important to civilization. Gays cannot produce children together. Marriage doesn't exist as a right for a couple's love to be sanctioned by government, a childish idea, it exists to obligate parents to children.

That's easy for you to say 1:21 but you have to ignore the fact that you go to hell if you have sex outside marriage and you got excommunicated for remarriage after divoce without cutting in the Pope for his portion of the profit.

I don't know if I am one who buys the argument that Hillary avoided saying she opposed gay marriage, or did so on religious or secular grounds. The latter notion, embedded in the idea that marriage is a child support gurantee, runs counter to views expressed in "It Takes a Village."

Nonetheless it is clear she said she did not support same sex marriage as a Senator, Presidential candidate, or when serving Obama. I am glad she is now free to speak her own evolved mind. Bet it pisses off the rednecks who supported her in the W. Va. and Penn. primaries, though.

The latter notion, embedded in the idea that marriage is a child support gurantee, runs counter to views expressed in "It Takes a Village."

Not necessarily. "The Village" where marriage is concerned is the social group that exerts pressure on the group not to reproduce without a lifelong commitment of responsibility to the other person and offspring, the idea being that this arrangement is in the norm better for every member of that unit and the society at large and hence a desirable standard to reinforce through social pressure and law.

No one knows if she now personally supports gay marriage in terms of believing it is a positive development but it's highly doubtful she does.

The fact that as an activist she would have been aware of the nascent movement and contemplated the issue more than superficially, back then and when DOMA was debated. Her position was not just a hedging acknowledgment of political realities. Her comments evidenced a belief that the interest of society not legalizing gay marriage is weightier than the arguments in favor which usually come down to gays imitating a mainstream custom to feel included, but with no explanation for why society and government should broaden an institution to include persons that cannot reproduce if there is a chance that doing so would undermine the original purpose of its establishment. The secular institution exists only because there is reproduction between heterosexuals that humankind and American society decided, in the interest of civilization, necessitates laws obligating parents to children, in the interest of the children first, members of society at large remaining unburdened by others' children second, and the parents last. Gay marriage alters this definition to one that says the purpose of marriage is for government to legitimate the love relationship between two individuals, with questions of obligation to children produced by the two rendered irrelevant in that definition.

It is doubtful someone who viewed marriage in the moral and historical context Hillary did when she made her comments would have changed her mind. Or that a lifelong liberal activist who rejected the above arguments and was only publicly opposing until the political winds changed would have put their phony opposition in such specific and rational terms.

""Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman."

Those aren't the comments of a secretly pro gay marriage pol, and when that view is held by an intelligent middle aged activist who has had years to contemplate the issue, it is highly unlikely she will suddenly "evolve" just at the moment college-age students who watch Glee become convinced it's a critically important issue.

The purpose of marriage laws is to lay out a default contract between two persons, granting certain benefits and requiring certain obligations. One of those obligations is the care of children. But gaining the benefits is not contingent on making children, and in my state, at least, the issue of love is not mentioned in the family law statutes.

The point of making campaign statements is to tell prospective voters what you will do when elected. If Hillary Clinton decides to carry out a different agenda when running in 2016 instead of 2008, her views will be a proposal to the public about what she plans to do in office, not an undying committment to hold certain personal views unwavering across time.

"On our planet we thought your "Big Dog" was one of your better leaders. We think his First Lady might be an excellent person to be the first lady President. But she needs to learn to answer questions in a way which does not reinforce a view of herself she has, as much as the press has, developed over 20 + years in the national spotlight."

The elephant in the living room that no true Bob fan will ever discuss.

I'm not a particular fan of Bill Maher, but he offered Hillary the best advice, at least when her current book tour is over.

To wit: Go away. Take a break. Get yourself out of the spotlight for a while. Regroup. Think things over. And for goodness sake, learn something about coping with the media and all their impertinent questions. You might begin by consulting the person you are married to. Nobody was better at it than he was.

Fair or not, the "narrative" is in place. It's been in place for 20 years. Deal with it. And by all means, don't reinforce it.

Bill Maher is a news junkie. He super-saturates himself with news. Most everyday people do not. Telling a politician to stay out of the public spotlight is bad advice because it will weaken her recognition among the large mass of voters who do not follow these day to day machinations.

The narrative being established now is that Clinton is bad at answering questions. No one is saying that except the same journalists trying to advance these other negative memes, that she is too wealthy and out of touch, for example. Why Bill Maher chooses to buy into the Hillary is too visible story line is pretty obvious. She has never been his favored candidate and will not be in 2016. So, his advice is akin to concern trolling.

I think politicians should campaign as much as they think they need to in order to be elected. Saying a politician should back off because she will have a better chance of being elected that way is very stupid. Maher may be sick of Hillary, but he never liked her to begin with. But if he thinks she or any female candidate will believe someone who says -- it doesn't do to let the voters see too much of you -- keep a low profile, that's the way to win honey -- he clearly thinks Hillary in particular and women in general are stupid. Bill Maher has a very ambivalent attitude toward women, understable given the kind of guy he is, but his advice is both wrong and not motivated by any desire to see her gain office. Your snark changes nothing about that.

Bill Maher, during the Impeachment, defending Clinton admirably but not well, before jaunting off to "Shadow Conventions" with Ariana Huffington where W and Gore were declared "the same." Among idiots who have never confessed about what was done to Gore, he's right up there. So, I think he probably finds Hillary getting tweaked a little painful for reasons he does not fully understand. Many of us, however, have steeled ourselves, and are long past stupid attacks on The Clintons fatigue. These people will be in large part ignored, and Hill will glide to the White House, and the Dems will take back the Congress due to the large turnout. And all the way, Bob will be wringing his hands because Dems just aren't playing nice.

But if I were considering taking on a task as physically, mentally and emotionally arduous as even running a campaign for president, let alone winning and becoming the president, I'd think the advice of taking a break in advance and while I could would be pretty sound.

I'm not so sure Gross's tactic constituted bad journalism. It seems to me media-trained politicians are constantly giving non-responsive speeches instead of answering journalists' questions, especially on-air. It's one of the skills of the job.

What Gross did was kind of neat. When she asked "Were there positions...?" Hillary could have said yes or no. If the true answer would have been "no" it wouldn't have been easy for her to say so. Since she didn't, it could be reasonably inferred from her non-response that the true and embarrassing answer was "yes." And that's what Gross inferred, and that was the basis of her follow-up question. And she added the tag, "correct me if I'm wrong."

Sounds like pretty good journalism to me. Does Mr. Somerby believe good journalism requires that interviewers respect the bullshitting feints and dodges of public officials? Sometimes an outrageous inference can be used to force a honest response. Journalists aren't allowed to use torture, but nothing should stop them from using psychology, except good manners. Hillary realized she was up against a professional, and not some ambitious climber like David Gregory, and that's why the interview "devolved." Bill Clinton's understudy was caught on the defensive by an journalist unimpressed by Somerby's rules of foolish consistency.

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